Memo: Where Is Downing Street? … an Opinion Page Analysis
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Article No. # Memo: Where is Downing Street? … An Opinion Page Analysis. Benjamin Eveloff Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville Abstract First appearing in the United State’s national media during the summer of 2005 the Downing Street memo is a document that was leaked from a 2002 meeting with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The memo stated that the Bush Administration had intentions of going to war with Iraq 8 months prior to when the war began and even planned on going to war if weapons of mass destruction were not found by inspectors. If the document was shown to be credible it could have turned American public opinion against the war and the administration. Using framing theory the author looked at a total of 16 opinion pieces that dealt with the Downing Street memo. The researcher used textual analysis to look at each writer’s opinion of how important they believed the memo was to telling the full story. Findings showed that 81 percent of opinion piece writers believed that they media should have covered the memo more thoroughly. Introduction On May 1, 2005, The London Sunday Times published a story about a British intelligence memo leaked from a July 23, 2002 prime minister’s meeting (Manning, 2005). The memo, now called the Downing Street memo, stated that 8 months before the Iraq war began, President Bush’s administration planned on fighting a war regardless of whether or not weapons of mass destruction were found. “It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force” (Manning, 2005). After the story first ran on May 1, the American media were slow to follow with coverage of the document. On May 2, the New York Times mentioned the memo in a story about Tony Blair’s reelection, and the Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post each waited a week to write a story. A month after the Downing Street memo had been made public; the Associated Press wrote its first story on the topic. News organizations did not begin to talk in-depth about the memo until after a June 7, 2005 news conference where President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were both asked about it (Rieder, 2005). The Issue When a document is leaked with implications such as these it is the duty of the American media to investigate it. Because the press is seen to serve a watchdog function for the American people they must examine subjects of this nature (Hohenberg, 1971). The responsibility for the press to act in this manner is very important to the idea of American democracy. A key in fulfilling this obligation to the American citizens would be to examine a document that puts into question a government’s reasoning for a war that has cost taxpayers millions of dollars while leading to the deaths of U.S. soldiers and Iraqis. By May 2005, Congress approved about $192 billion for the Iraq war, another $58 billion for Afghanistan, and about $20 billion to enhance air security and other Pentagon preparedness measures. In total that is $270 billion for military operations since 2001 (Grier, 2005). “More spending on the war is sure to come — even if the U.S. begins to draw down troops levels. While it is difficult to estimate precisely, it is sure to be in the hundreds of billions, experts say. The Congressional Research Service pegs the cost of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at an additional $458 billion through 2014” (Grier, 2005). This study has built on previous research conducted by Kim, 2000; Van Belle, 2000; and Livingston and Bennett, 2003, on the United States’ media coverage of foreign nations. Also, work done on stories that most effectively attract news consumer’s attention will be analyzed to provide insight into what they want to read. Studies on framing theory will also be looked at since it will be the basis for interpreting each piece. While applying framing theory, this study will examine the importance each author gives to the Downing Street memo. Looking at the frames used by each writer will help the researcher to explain how every individual rationalizes his or her opinion. The fact that authors are writing about the Downing Street memo does not constitute a view of its importance, thus the actual opinions they express will be analyzed. Each sample will be analyzed by the researcher to find how each editorial and opinion piece is framed. Since the opinion section acts as the paper’s “voice”, views expressed toward what is important in the world should translate to the news section. Opinion pages, unlike the hard news section, offer the ability to express views on any subject. The purpose of this study is not to decide if the memo is true, it is to find the writers’ opinions about how it was covered. Research Questions R1: Will the views expressed by the writers show a belief of weak coverage by the United States media on the Downing Street Memo? R2: What percentage of pieces analyzed show a belief that the Downing Street Memo is a credible document? R3: If the writers do believe the United States media did not cover the memo properly, what factors will they believe lead to the lack of coverage? The researcher will be looking for opinions within the pieces that point to a belief of importance or unimportance by each author. The researcher will analyze positive and negative aspects. If an author says the memo is important or that it should have been looked at more by the media, that point will show a positive opinion of the memo. The belief that an idea should be further researched illustrates an interest of the document in the writer. A piece will be seen as negative if the writer does not believe the memo is important, or if it is discredited. An example of discrediting the document would be to say that the memo is just a form of liberal propaganda. An example of the liberal media argument is illustrated in Michael Kinsley’s Baltimore Sun column. Literature Review Studies on International News Hargrove and Stempel III (2002) looked for what type of international news readers are most interested in. To do this they used a national telephone survey of 1,007 randomly selected adults from June 17 to June 28, 2001. Interviewers read twenty headlines to them and ask how interested they would be to hear about each. The researchers recorded people who said they would be “very interested” to read each story since those people would be most likely to read the story. The study found that good news (news in a positive tone) is more popular than bad news (negative tone). It was also found that international stories about politics are not as popular as stories about an average person making news. Another finding was that international stories featuring Americans draw an above average interest from the sample. Some gatekeepers have argued that Americans do not care about foreign news. This argument is flawed in that if a reader does not care what news is presented he or she will probably not purchase the paper and readership will be lost. Some of the findings in this study support that idea, showing that Americans in the study care more about non-governmental news about an average person. But the study also showed that participants were more interested in foreign news that included Americans. Lehmann (2005) used qualitative research to focus on the differences in the media coverage of UN weapons inspectors by the United States and Germany. Coverage from one print and one television outlet in each country were analyzed. Print coverage included the New York Times and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Television programs analyzed were NBC Nightly News and Die Taqesschau. Nine different events were analyzed in the research that were believed to be important events in the UN weapons process. The researcher also looked at both hard news stories and opinion sections from the newspapers. Findings of the study illustrated that U.S. and German media acted quite differently in covering the UN weapons inspectors. U.S. media seemed to be stuck on the idea of a “War on Terror” and commonly associated Saddam Hussein with Sept. 11, 2001, doing nothing to clear up those assumptions although there was never a proven connection. The German media did not challenge the weapons inspector’s honesty. Similarities were found in the editorials of the New York Times and Allgemeine Zeitung, but not in the nightly television shows. While Die Taqesschau continued to report its news with opinions from both side of the issue, the NBC nightly news began using the title “The Road to War.” The German program used sources from both sides of the issue while NBC used “experts” on the situation who did not express a wide range of opinions. The relationship drawn between Iraq and the terrorists attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 caused U.S. reporters to present “Patriotic Journalism,” in which they would report the stories in a manner that turned the war into an event where the anchors presented a “we are going to go get them” attitude, rather than presenting perspectives from both sides of the fighting.